


Amis avec des avantages

by satb31



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, Blow Jobs, Courferre Week, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Musicians, New Orleans, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Restaurants, Secret Relationship, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-08
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-02-12 09:14:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2104002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satb31/pseuds/satb31
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During a New Orleans summer, Courfeyrac and Combeferre become friends with benefits, but they decide they need to hide their arrangement from Enjolras -- who has an arrangement or two of his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Combeferre could not remember a time when he wasn’t friends with Courfeyrac and Enjolras.

They were New Orleans boys, born and bred, all from old families who had lived in the city from its earliest days. They grew up in Garden District mansions, with fathers who worked in the CBD and mothers who joined the Junior League and sisters who participated in debutante balls. As teenagers they prowled the city, arguing about politics while they learned how to drink and smoke and fuck in the smoky jazz clubs and the back alleys of the Quarter; as college students at Tulane, they shared an apartment and learned to live on their own.

After college, however, they’d gone their separate ways. Enjolras went to law school and became a public interest lawyer, working in the poorer wards of the city as a community organizer, standing up to the corrupt cops and the shady business people who had flooded into the city after Katrina. Combeferre had gone on to do his graduate work at Tulane, and now he taught history there -- his speciality was 18th century American history, and he spent his days lecturing to bored undergraduates about Federalist 10 and the Louisiana Purchase and his nights in a tiny second floor apartment near campus with his stacks of books. And Courfeyrac was ostensibly working for his father’s law firm, but he was also an investor in a restaurant, stealing from his mother’s receipt book to make tantalizing Creole dishes using local ingredients that were the toast of the French Quarter for locals and tourists alike.

They were closing in on their 30s now, but even as their lives diverged, they still kept in touch -- they still met for drinks, always at the same bar they’d gone to since college, where they would talk about their work and gossip about their childhood friends. Enjolras would go on long monologues about politics, and Combeferre would tell amusing stories about his undergraduates, and Courfeyrac would complain about his day job and share tales of the restaurant business.

None of them were attached -- Courfeyrac had had an on-again, off-again relationship with a musician named Prouvaire, but Enjolras remained defiantly single, and Combeferre was abysmally bad at sustaining any relationships beyond a few weeks.

“Why do I have a feeling that when we’re 40 we’ll still be coming here?” Enjolras had asked more than once.

And every time he said it, Courfeyrac would snort and reply, “And that’s a problem?”

And Combeferre would lean back and close his eyes in contentment, in the full knowledge that come hell or high water -- and in New Orleans, the latter was always possible -- he would have his two best friends by his side.

But on a ferociously humid Friday morning in August, after a particularly intense drinking session during which Combeferre and Courfeyrac had participated in a heated debate over issues of the constitutionality of wiretapping and rendition, Combeferre woke up in Courfeyrac’s bed, hung over and aching in all the right places.

And Combeferre wondered if things would ever be the same with them again.

**  
“Good morning,” Courfeyrac drawled as he came over sat on the bed next to Combeferre, clad in just a scanty bathrobe and bearing two glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice. “How are you feeling today?”

Combeferre grunted and sat up, reaching for the glass Courfeyrac was offering. “Please tell me there’s no alcohol in here,” he said, sniffing at his drink.

Courfeyrac laughed. “Hair of the dog that bit you, am I right?” he said. “But no, I abstained. And coffee is on its way.”

“And I thank you for that,” Combeferre replied dryly. He sipped his juice and tugged the blanket up over his hips with his free hand, feeling suddenly self-conscious in the bright light that streamed through Courfeyrac’s windows.

Noticing Combeferre’s sudden discomfort, Courfeyrac patted his leg reassuringly. “You do know I’ve seen everything, darling,” he said. “I mean, not that I hadn’t seen it before, and last night I saw it all close up--” he said, trailing his fingers up Combeferre’s thigh.

This caused Combeferre to squirm even more. “You do know that last night was a terrible idea, and that we should never do this again,” he said primly.

Courfeyrac placed his juice glass on the nightstand. “Why is it such a terrible idea?” he asked as he crawled on top of Combeferre. “Prouvaire is off in New York for God knows how long, and you don’t have anyone in your life right now. Can’t we just fuck around once in a while?” he asked, leaning in to kiss Combeferre on the mouth. “I had fun last night, didn’t you?”

“Well, yeah, but--” Combeferre murmured, feeling his objections melting in the lush heat of Courfeyrac’s mouth.

Courfeyrac grinned and slipped his hand under the blanket. “Relax, cher,” he said in an affected parody of a local accent. “Laissez le bon temps roulez,” he murmured, as Combeferre reflexively groaned.

After another half an hour in bed, followed by a lengthy shower together, Courfeyrac sent Combeferre on his way, dressed in his own shorts and one of Courfeyrac’s t-shirts, and bearing a travel mug filled with the coffee Courfeyrac had brewed. “I’ll see you tonight?” Courfeyrac asked, pressing a kiss to Combeferre’s damp forehead as they stood on his front porch.

“Sure, I guess,” Combeferre said absently, squinting at Courfeyrac as he shielded his eyes against the sunlight, realizing he had not brought his sunglasses with him in the expectation he’d be home long before dawn.

“You do know it’s just sex,” Courfeyrac reassured him. “It’s not like we’re boyfriends now, you know,” he scoffed.

Combeferre nodded. “I know that,” he said, trying to sound casual.

But he still wasn’t completely sure.

**  
For the rest of the day -- as he rode the streetcar back to his apartment, as he showered yet again and dressed in his own clothes, as he sat at his laptop pounding out his syllabus for the senior seminar he was teaching -- Combeferre tried to push thoughts of the previous night to the back of his mind. But he kept being distracted by reminiscences of the feel of Courfeyrac’s soft lips on every inch of his body, of the magnificent feeling of their bodies melding together.

God, it had been way too long.

He knew that Courfeyrac was right that it was just sex, and his proposal was appealing: a relationship, or something, that was built simply on a mutual desire to fulfill each other’s physical needs. It was certainly appealing to Combeferre -- romantic relationships were never his strong point, as he just sometimes seemed to get so far into his own head that he never considered his partner’s feelings. Friends with benefits, his students would say -- and God, if last night had been any indication, those benefits were amazing.

But he worried, as he always did and always would, about the friendship -- he loved Courfeyrac as a brother, as a confidante, as a debate partner. And he knew he had the potential to fuck this up like he’d fucked it up so often before.

And then there was Enjolras, the third leg of their stool -- Enjolras, who didn’t do relationships at all, who didn’t even do sex as far as Combeferre knew. Would it be awkward and weird? Could they -- should they -- even tell him?

As the sun was setting through the trees outside, Combeferre pushed back from his desk and rifled through the papers on his bookshelf to find his phone. There were two text messages there -- one each from Enjolras, and the other from Courfeyrac.

“Reservation at Corinthe at 8:00,” read the text from Enjolras. It was more a command than a question, but Combeferre replied anyway in the affirmative.

“I’m in a meeting and I can barely sit down and it’s all your fault,” Courfeyrac had texted with a winking emoticon.

Combeferre sighed, weighing the phone in his hand as he contemplated his reply. “Better sort that out before 8:00,” he finally texted back, the corners of his mouth turned up in a slight smile. “Should I call you a doctor?”

“Did it sound like I was complaining?” came back Courfeyrac’s reply, with yet another wink. “We can do it again later if you want to.”

Combeferre tossed the phone on the table with a memory-induced shudder, and padded into the bathroom to take another shower -- his third one of the day, he realized, as he peeled off his clothes and turned the faucet on.

And made sure the water was as ice cold as he could stand.

**

Combeferre was the first to arrive at the restaurant -- five minutes early, as was his custom -- only to discover their table wasn’t quite ready yet. As he paced around outside on the sidewalk, practicing how he would greet Courfeyrac, the devil himself appeared beside him.

“Nice to see you,” Courfeyrac said, looking to see if Enjolras had arrived, then pecking Combeferre on the lips. “Were you thinking of me all day?” he asked.

“Not in the slightest,” Combeferre deadpanned..

Courfeyrac snorted. “You’re a fucking liar,” he said. “Don’t forget I’ve known you since we were awkward preteens, my friend. I know what you used to be like before you got hot,” he said, letting his hand wander down to stroke Combeferre’s ass.

As Combeferre flushed and shoved him away, the hostess poked her head out the door. “Enjolras, party of three? Your table is ready.”

“Don’t say a fucking word about anything, okay?” Combeferre hissed to Courfeyrac as they walked inside to be seated. “Enjolras doesn’t need to know about -- you know..”

Courfeyrac took his seat on one side of the booth, taking the napkin off the table grandly and laying it across his lap. “About our ‘arrangement’?” he euphemized. “He’s not an idiot. He’ll figure it out soon enough.”

“I just don’t want it to be weird, you know?” Combeferre said, picking up the wine list. “You know how he is.”

Courfeyrac snorted. “For all we know he has some arrangement of his own,” he pointed out. “He has to get off some way or another.”

“As if I’d ever tell you about how I get off,” Enjolras interrupted him, as he slid into the booth next to Combeferre. “You’d get it published on the front page of the Times-Picayune.”

“Because it would be the biggest news to hit the city since the last hurricane,” Courfeyrac quipped. “The next storm of the century, if you will.”

Enjolras glared at him as he cracked open the menu. “Not all of us have managed to fuck just about everyone in Orleans Parish. Well, other than me and Combeferre, right?” he said, poking his friend beside him.

Not looking up from the wine list, Combeferre nodded. “Right,” he managed to croak, not daring to meet Courfeyrac’s gaze, knowing even without looking that his friend was grinning like crazy.

**  
The next morning, when Combeferre opened his eyes -- again hung over, again sore in all the right places -- Courfeyrac was still asleep, the sheet just covering his bare skin and his dark curls splayed out across the pillowcase.

God, this would not be easy, Combeferre knew, as he cringed at the tiny lie he had told Enjolras the night before.

But as he leaned over and kissed Courfeyrac awake, and they began to come together as one again, he knew one thing for sure: the benefits, such as they were, were absolutely amazing.


	2. Chapter 2

As Enjolras walked out of Corinthe that night, he could not shake an unsettled feeling that seemed to cut right to the bone. Normally he drew comfort from his two oldest and dearest friends, but after two hours of banter and wine, he just felt worse — his head was throbbing, and his heart felt like it would burst out of his chest.

His organizing work was certainly stressful — ever since Katrina, which hit at the start of his senior year of college, he had been working and working, for justice and attention and everything that had been so lacking when disaster hit the city. His city, the city he loved and would never leave, a city that so many people had just left to drown. Far too many people, it seemed, wouldn’t mind just letting it fall into the Gulf.

There was no way that could ever happen — certainly not while Enjolras still drew breath — and that was what kept him going each day.

In the past few months, however, his work was started to catch up to him — he had difficulty dragging himself out of bed each morning and he couldn’t focus until he’d had at least two cups of coffee and chicory. Rich foods were starting to upset his stomach, and he had even started finding gray hairs mixed in with his trademark blond locks.

So he found himself looking for something — anything — that would act as a release. He had tried running and yoga and even knitting, but they all made him more tense somehow.

There was only one thing that he had found that worked — and that night, he needed it more than he ever had.

So after his friends had gone their separate ways, he whipped out his cell phone and punched in a text, then got in his car and drove not to his tiny apartment in Mid-City, but to an artist’s loft in Bywater.

And ten minutes after he arrived, he was leaning against the kitchen counter, his jeans around his ankles and his cock in another man’s mouth.

**

“Fuck, I needed that,” Enjolras said breathlessly when he finished.

“Bad day?” asked the man on his knees, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Enjolras exhaled in a long burst. “Long day,” he said, pulling his lover to his feet. “Arguing with the city, arguing with landlords — and then Combeferre and Courfeyrac were acting really weird at dinner. I don’t know what the fuck was wrong with either of them.” He kissed both of the man’s hands. “Thank God for you, Feuilly,” he said.

Feuilly grinned. “It’s the least I could do for you, man,” he said, kissing Enjolras on the mouth. “After all you’ve done for me? Getting me this loft, helping me get a new job—”

“Don’t talk about it like that,” Enjolras interrupted sternly. “It makes it sound like you owe me something, and you don’t. Besides, I reciprocate sometimes, don’t I?” he said, as he tugged his jeans and his underwear back up over his hips, tucking himself back in and zipping his fly.

Feuilly chuckled. “Once in a while,” he teased. “Okay, lots of times,” he corrected himself when Enjolras glared at him. “Do you want me to make you something? Coffee, a sandwich?”

“Nah, I’m fine,” Enjolras said, as he patted his jeans pocket to be sure his phone hasn’t fallen out in his haste for Feuilly’s touch. “I should go, though,” he said. “I have an early meeting, and I should probably sleep at home tonight.” He kissed Feuilly lightly on the lips. “I owe you one, man.”

“Any time,” Feuilly said, wandering over the the refrigerator to get himself a beer. “See you soon?”

“What do you think?” he said over his shoulder as he walked out the door.

As he clattered down the front steps of the apartment building to find his car, a voice from the shadows startled him. “Boy, you’re quick,” someone said.

Enjolras turned in the direction of the voice. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Enjolras asked, his defenses rising immediately.

“You and Feuilly,” the man said, as he came into the light, revealing an unshaven face and a mop of dark curly hair. “Doesn’t take you long to get off, does it?” he chortled.

Enjolras drew himself up to his full height. “I don’t really know how that’s any of your business,” he said haughtily.

“Spoken like a true son of the Junior League,” the man said as he walked closer, his chin raised defiantly. “And it’s my business because Feuilly’s my friend, and I don’t want him getting hurt by some trust fund asshole who likes slumming it. We get enough of your kind nosing around here, trying to buy our art for cheap so they can say they discovered us to their friends at cocktail parties.”

Gritting his teeth, Enjolras replied, “If you must know, I helped Feuilly with some of his legal issues — and we became friends. That’s all.”

The man laughed uproariously. “I could use a friend like that,” he said leeringly. “One who comes over and blows me and then disappears into the night.”

Enjolras knew he should walk away — that he should get in his car and go home and collapse into his bed and forget this rude, boorish asshole with the piercing blue eyes — but his intrigue got the better of him. “What’s your name?” he asked, his manners, as always, impeccable.

“I’m Grantaire,” he said, offering his hand to shake. “And you’re Enjolras.”

Enjolras was taken aback. “How did you know that?”

“I’ve seen you come and go, and I asked around,” Grantaire answered with a casual shrug. “I make it my business to know what’s going on in my building, you know.” He looked Enjolras up and down slowly. “You need to keep a close eye on everyone who comes and goes — so to speak,” he said, letting his eyes linger on Enjolras’s crotch.

Warmth was spreading onto Enjolras’s face. “You should get involved with the artists’ collective Feuilly’s been working on,” he murmuredt. “They’re trying to help people from all walks of life—”

Grantaire shook his head. “Nah, man, I don’t do politics. I do art, and I do booze, and a few other things,” he said with a leer. “Honestly, I don’t believe any of that shit. They’re all out to fuck us, and they’d all rather see this city drown. And most days I think it would be better if it did.”

“I see,” Enjolras said, disappointment settling into his stomach. “Well, if you change your mind—” he trailed off.

“I’ll stop you the next time you’re here for a quickie, all right?” Grantaire said as he turned to go inside the building, letting the door slam shut behind him.

Enjolras stood and stared at him gape-mouthed for a moment, then turned on his heel to get back in his car. Jesus, what an infuriating human being, he thought as he turned the key in the ignition and steered out into the street and headed back home.

But try as he might, he could not get the dark-haired artist out of his mind.

**

Two weeks later, it was Enjolras who was on the receiving end of the text message, so after finishing up his client meetings for the day, he headed over to Feuilly’s apartment. Half an hour after he arrived, both of them were collapsed on their backs on Feuilly’s bed, breathing heavily, their discarded clothing strewn around the bedroom.

Feuilly leaned over and lit a cigarette. “Shit, man, where did you learn to do those things? Not out in Uptown, I’m sure.”

Enjolras tugged the sheet up over his fading erection. “I’m a quick learner,” he said with a slight grin. “Plus I have a best friend who has probably fucked half the city and he — well, let’s just say he likes to talk about it. And I’m a good listener.”

“You listened well, my friend,” Feuilly said, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “Send him my regards.”

They were both silent for a few minutes, the only sound the whir of the ceiling fan above them. As Feuilly smoked and stared at the ceiling, Enjolras found his thoughts returning to one thing — or more specifically, to one person.

“So I met your neighbor the last time I was here,” he finally said, attempting to sound casual.

Feuilly put out his half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray next to the bed, then propped his head up on one hand so he could look at Enjolras. “Which one? The voodoo lady or the grumpy asshole?”

“The grumpy asshole. Grantaire, or something?” Enjolras said, turning on his side so he was facing Feuilly, valiantly trying to forget that he had been thinking about Grantaire during any idle moments, or that he had googled Grantaire’s name as soon as he arrived home that night in a vain attempt to learn more about him. “What’s his deal?”

“Grantaire’s a good guy,” Feuilly said. “He moved in around the same time I did. He’s a painter — lots of abstract expressionist stuff, you know, the full Pollock thing where he puts his canvas on the floor and throws paint at it.” Enjolras shook his head helplessly— he knew nothing about art. “Why are you so interested?” Feuilly asked, stroking Enjolras’s side with the back of his hand.

“He just pissed me off, that’s all,” Enjolras said.

Feuilly snorted. “No it’s not. I’ve seen you when you get pissed, at City Hall or slumlords or whatever. You’re not pissed. You’re interested. You have another project in mind, I can tell. I mean, I may not know you as well as Combefeyrac or whatever their names are, but even I can tell you something’s going on up there.” He tapped the side of Enjolras’s head, then glanced over at the bedside clock. “Shit, I’ve got to go to work,” he muttered, rolling off the bed.

“Let me just grab my stuff and I’ll get out of here,” Enjolras offered, planting his feet on the floor and looking around for his discarded boxers.

“Stay as long as you need, okay?” Feuilly said, as he padded off toward the bathroom to get ready to head off to the bar on Bourbon Street, where he served up hurricanes to tourists. “Take a cold shower if you need to,” he called out, as he turned on the sink.

“I don’t think that’s really necessary,” Enjolras scoffed, as he tugged his boxers on, ignoring the fact that thoughts of the dark-haired artist were going straight to his cock.

Feuilly poked his head out of the bathroom. “He’s in apartment 203,” he said airily. “And his number’s in my phone. Just in case you want to make a stop before you go home. ”

Enjolras resisted the urge to flip him off, but instead he fished Feuilly’s phone off the nightstand and copied the digits into his own phone.

And then he spent the rest of the night — while he drove home, while he made himself dinner, while he caught up on emails — unsuccessfully trying to think of a good excuse to text Grantaire.

**

Finally, the next night, he texted Courfeyrac instead — after all, he was the more experienced of his two friends, and the one he would go to for relationship advice, given Combeferre’s abysmal track record in that area. While he waited for a reply, he stared at his phone, pacing around his kitchen, willing his friend to read the text.

After just 10 minutes he gave up waiting — Courfeyrac was usually very quick about returning his messages — and he decided he would just go find him at his apartment in the Marigny. Courfeyrac’s door was always open to him — and he needed to figure this out before he spontaneously combusted with a desire he had never felt before in his life.

“Enjolras, what the fuck are you doing here?” Courfeyrac said, his voice betraying an atypical annoyance with his friend, as he opened the door wearing nothing but a pair of shorts.

Enjolras ignored his friend’s obvious irritation, pushing past him and went inside. “I need your help,” he said.

“Why didn’t you call me?” Courfeyrac said, rooting around the living room for a shirt, which he pulled on over his head. “Text me, whatever. I’m not exactly up for visitors right now, you know.”

“As if I give a shit,” Enjolras said, plopping down on the couch. “It doesn’t look like you’re entertaining anyone — for a change,” he said, looking around at Courfeyrac’s cluttered living room.

“How do you know I’m not hiding someone in the bedroom closet?” Courfeyrac shot back as he slumped into the armchair opposite him, putting his bare feet up on the ottoman. “So what could you possibly want at this time of the night?”

Enjolras idly picked at the couch pillow. “I met someone,” he said, not meeting Courfeyrac’s eyes.

“You met someone? You?” Courfeyrac sat up, his eyes wide with astonishment. “Where? How? Why?”

Under his friend’s scrutiny Enjolras felt suddenly foolish for coming over and interrupting him at such a late hour. “It’s nothing. Just — just some artist I ran into a couple of weeks ago.”

“Just some artist?” Courfeyrac repeated. “It doesn’t sound like he’s just some artist. Not if you’re coming over here at all hours to ask me about him. So have you fucked him yet?”

Enjolras felt both appalled and intrigued by the thought. “No,” he said quickly, although his mind flashed to a scene of the two of them together, their bodies entangled, Grantaire’s full lips on him in all sorts of lascivious ways— “No, not yet — I mean, not at all.”

Courfeyrac chuckled. “You should remedy that,” he advised. “Do it now. Do it tonight, before you lose your nerve. Then come back here tomorrow and I’ll make you dinner and you can tell me all the gory details.”

“That’s your advice. Fuck him, and then come over here and tell you all about it,” Enjolras said incredulously.

“Yep,” Courfeyrac said. “Now get the hell out of here and text that boy, or I’ll do it for you,” he said, rising from his chair.

Enjolras took that as his cue to leave — although he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why Courfeyrac was clearly looking to get rid of him. “I knew you’d be a help,” he said, half sarcastically, looking Courfeyrac up and down — and then noticing something he had missed before. “Is that your shirt?” he asked, fingering the frayed hem of the sleeve.

Courfeyrac gazed down at his chest, then looked up at Enjolras with a look of innocence. “Of course, why do you ask?”

“Tulane History?” Enjolras observed, reading the writing across Courfeyrac’s chest. “Isn’t that one of Combeferre’s?”

Courfeyrac shrugged. “I guess so,” he said, before he quickly changed to subject. “Now get the hell out of here and get laid. Go.” he commanded, pushing Enjolras out the door and slamming it behind him.

The slammed door barely registered with Enjolras as he walked down the street to his car, staring at his phone screen while he figured out what he should text Grantaire. Enjolras was never very good at texting and walking, so he finally paused halfway down the block and typed in the words slowly and carefully. “Hey, it’s that trust fund asshole you met a couple of weeks ago. Want to get a drink?” he wrote, closing his eyes and hitting send before he could lose his nerve.

The text had barely been sent when the phone buzzed with a reply. “I have plenty of booze here. Come on over,” it read.

Enjolras gave a little yelp of excitement, then looked furtively around him, wondering if anyone had heard him. As he looked around him, he took notice the car parked on the street in front of him — a green Honda Civic with Tulane parking stickers on it.

A car that could be none other than Combeferre’s.

Why the fuck is Combeferre’s car parked in this neighborhood? Enjolras asked himself.

But then he walked back to his own car, the question soon lost in hazy thoughts of the possibilities that awaited him in apartment 203.


	3. Chapter 3

As soon as the door closed behind Enjolras, Courfeyrac heard the door to his bedroom closet open with a thud. “What the fuck were you thinking?” Combeferre demanded, as he barreled out of the bedroom with his teeth bared, clad only in his briefs and a pair of athletic socks.

Courfeyrac glared at him. “How was I to know he would come over here without texting first?” he shot back.

“I’m not talking about the messages,” Combeferre hissed. “I’m talking about the shirt,” he said, nodding his head at Courfeyrac’s chest.

Courfeyrac peeled off the shirt and tossed it at its owner, before stalking past him into the kitchen. “Well, maybe you shouldn’t have left it in a pile of clothes in my living room then,” he said, grabbing a beer out of the refrigerator. After Enjolras’s visit, he desperately wanted a drink or five.

“Well, maybe if you hadn’t decided to grab it and put it on without looking at it first,” Combeferre retorted, tugging the shirt over his head. “Why even put on a shirt? It’s not like Enjolras has never seen your body before.”

Courfeyrac opened the bottle using the bottle opener attached to his kitchen counter, then took a long swig. “Maybe I was feeling shy,” he said stubbornly, wiping his mouth.

Combeferre snorted. “You? Shy?” He grabbed the bottle out of Courfeyrac’s hand and took a swig himself. “I’ve known you since we were eight, Courf. Shy has never been a word I’d use to describe you.”

“Oh really?” Courfeyrac said with a low chuckle, approaching Combeferre and wrapping his arms around his waist in an attempt to defuse the situation. “Maybe I’m just a shy, timid boy who needs a little love,” he said, pouting prettily.

Combeferre couldn’t help but to laugh in spite of himself. “Is that what you really need?” he asked incredulously. “Or maybe you just need a little discipline,” he teased, smacking Courfeyrac’s ass lightly. 

Courfeyrac kissed him greedily, enjoying the taste of beer on Combeferre’s lips. “Oh definitely, Professor Combeferre. I’ve been a very naughty boy,” he teased, palming Combeferre through his underwear.

And Combeferre growled and pushed him backwards onto the couch -- the encounter with Enjolras quickly forgotten.

**  
The next morning, Courfeyrac awakened alone in his bed -- Combeferre had departed shortly after dawn with a kiss and a murmured explanation about needing to be back on campus for an event for new students. Courfeyrac found himself feeling surprisingly bereft at the news -- he had actually been hoping to be spend his Saturday with Combeferre, perhaps having brunch somewhere in the Quarter, taking a walk along the river, wandering back to his apartment--

No, Courfeyrac stopped himself. That sounded far too much like a relationship -- and Courfeyrac didn’t do relationships. He never did relationships. Yes, he technically had a boyfriend, but Prouvaire was off in New York, working in a recording studio as a backup musician for some jazz legend in the making, but it wasn’t an exclusive thing. At least, Courfeyrac had never seen it that way, although he suspected Prouvaire may feel differently.

From a very young age, Courfeyrac had been a collector of people -- he made friends easily, and attracted lovers even more easily. But he had never really been interested in making things last for long -- unlike Combeferre, who had tried to make things work with various men over the years, or Enjolras, who just seemed completely uninterested in sex or love or anything of the sort. Courfeyrac was all about living life to its fullest, just wanting to satisfy his appetites whenever and however he could.

And Courfeyrac’s appetites were voracious. Not just for both men and women, but he lived for experiences -- always wanting something more, something different. He took a year off after college and backpacked around Europe and Asia, where he indulged himself in just about every possible vice before returning to his home city to start law school.

When he finished law school, he took up a position in his father’s law firm -- after all, experiences cost money, and law paid lots of it -- but he hated the work, and did as little as he possibly could, knowing he could probably have a position as an associate as long as he wanted. The money he made was spent on travel, and expensive meals, and quality clothes -- and on his new investment.

A restaurant. 

Food was another of Courfeyrac’s great loves; life was too short to eat bad food, he thought, especially living in a city like New Orleans. His mother was a great cook, and had taught him everything he needed to know about ingredients and technique and presentation. For him, the kitchen was also a place for activism -- making good, affordable, healthy food, using local products, creating good jobs in a place where they were sorely needed. Maybe it wasn’t fighting city hall, like Enjolras did, but it was the best way he could help change the world.

The restaurant was an idea cooked up over copious amounts of alcohol and pot with a law school friend, a tall, bearded man named Bahorel. Bahorel had actually dropped out of law school after his first year, telling Courfeyrac that he’d rather do any job in the world if it meant he’d never have to open a legal tome ever again -- and he’d done just that, first working as a shrimper on the Gulf, then starting a contracting business, helping to rebuild houses after the storm. The latter had given him a taste of entrepreneurship, so on a night when Courfeyrac was drunk and high and pontificating about etoufee, Bahorel pounded the table, shouting, “Fuck, man, let’s do it.”

And they did.

Bahorel was the muscle, the one who hired all the kitchen staff and the server and made sure the lights stayed on and the liquor license was current, while Courfeyrac was both the visionary -- the one who hired the executive chef and talked through the menus -- and the money. They had had their ups and downs, certainly, but in their third year, they were starting to actually make money, and they could relax, at least a little bit.

It was Bahorel who was there most nights, but Courfeyrac did try to stop by as much as he could -- particularly on Saturdays and Sundays, when he could easily stay away from the law firm. So after dragging himself out of bed, he made himself an omelet, drank two cups of coffee, and took a very long shower, washing last night’s festivities off of him before he got dressed and headed off to attend to his new venture.  
.  
**

“You seem happy today,” Bahorel observed offhandedly as they sat at a corner table, where one of the servers had brought them a tasting menu of everything new the chef had added this month. 

Courfeyrac’s eyes narrowed as he bit into a crostini. “What do you mean?” he said as he chewed thoughtfully, savoring the mixture of sweet and salty.

“I don’t know. It’s like you’re glowing even more than usual. Whatever you’re doing, it’s good for you,” Bahorel said as he tucked into his gumbo. “Fuck, that’s good,” he said around a spoonful. “Do you put pure crack in this or what?”

Courfeyrac beamed at Bahorel’s praise. “It’s a recipe from my grandmother, so nothing illegal. For a change,” he explained with a grin. “And-- I may or may not be seeing someone,” he said offhandedly, hoping Bahorel would be so enraptured by the food he wouldn't even notice .

Instead Bahorel almost choked on his food. “You? Seeing someone? Is that hot musician guy?”

Breaking off a piece of bread, Courfeyrac shook his head. “No, Prouvaire’s in New York,” he answered -- or at least, he thought he was still in New York. When did Prouvaire say he was going to be back? “It’s--” he hesitated, looking around inexplicably in case someone was listening, then blurted, “It’s Combeferre.”

Bahorel’s laughter carried across the restaurant. “You and Combeferre? Really? Are you just fucking, or--”

“I don’t know,” Courfeyrac said, the words tumbling out of him. “ I mean, he and I were just drunk and horny, and then -- I don’t know, it’s just not the same. Fuck, man -- it’s like, I miss him when he’s not there. What the fuck is that all about?”

“What it’s about, my friend,” Bahorel said, pointing his spoon at him, “is that this time you’re in love.”

Courfeyrac avoided Bahorel’s penetrating gaze, playing with the napkin in his lap. “I am not in love with Combeferre,” he scoffed, although he could feel a certain warmth spreading across his face. “He’s one of my oldest friends. It’s just sex -- nothing more.”

Bahorel leaned back in his chair, stroking his beard. “You do know that whenever someone says ‘it’s just sex’ it’s generally not just sex, right?”

“Fuck off,” Courfeyrac said, suddenly irritated. 

“Friends make the best lovers, you know,” Bahorel said. “And you know you’re compatible as friends -- how hard would it be to take it to another level --”

“No,” Courfeyrac interrupted, shaking his head vigorously. “That’s a terrible idea.”

Bahorel picked up a piece of bread and decided to take another tack. “So what does Enjolras think of this development?” he asked.

“We haven’t told him. He stopped by last night while Combeferre and I were -- you know -- and Combeferre hid in the closet until he left. Though I think we could have been fucking right in front of him and he never would have noticed. I guess he met some artist or something,” Courfeyrac said with a shrug.

“Enjolras? Met someone?Jesus. The world must be coming to an end. First you settling down, then Enjolras?” Bahorel laughed. “Well, maybe you could tell him, then. Now that he understands what it’s like to be in loooove,” Bahorel joked.

“Oh God, no,” Courfeyrac said with a shudder. “Would you?”

Bahorel chewed thoughtfully. “Nah. I think I’d rather go back to law school,” he said, looking at his watch. “Opening time,” he said, rising from the table and tossing his napkin aside. “Time to be the happy restauranteurs,” he said, slapping Courfeyrac on the back.

As Bahorel went into the back to chat with the kitchen staff, Courfeyrac found a spot at the bar, where he could watch the Saturday evening crowd come and go, occasionally milling around the dining room, charming the customers with his kitten smile.

But as the evening wore on, he found himself checking his phone every 10 minutes to see if he had heard from Combeferre -- and his heart sank every time there was no message.

Christ, this was definitely starting to be a problem.

**

On Sunday morning, he finally gave in and texted Combeferre, casually asking him how he was -- they were friends, for God’s sake, they were used to texting each other, why would this be any different? They weren’t planning to see each other that day either -- he knew Combeferre was giving a lecture at a conference up at LSU that afternoon, and wasn’t planning to be back until late, and Courfeyrac had an engagement party to attend -- but still Courfeyrac felt this inexplicable need to hear from him.

Combeferre’s return text was prompt, as always -- Combeferre was the type of person who always responded to texts right away, unless he was driving or teaching. “Either I’m getting older or kids are getting dumber,” he wrote back.

Courfeyrac laughed. It was so like him to complain about “kids today” -- sometimes he thought Combeferre had been born a middle aged man. “You seem to do pretty well for an old guy,” he texted back with a wink.

“Tell that to my knees after Friday night,” came the return text.

And now Courfeyrac couldn’t stop thinking about what Combeferre had been doing on his knees Friday night. “See you tomorrow night?” he wrote back quickly, shaking his head before he tossed his phone on his unmade bed and started digging through his closet for his suit.

“Sounds good to me,” came the reply text, with no attached emoticons -- another move that was so very Combeferre. 

But even if Courfeyrac was developing feelings for Combeferre, clearly they weren’t returned.

**  
The engagement party was being held outside, at a little restaurant overlooking the water. The bride and groom were friends of Courfeyrac’s from law school; the groom, Marius Pontmercy, was an heir of a wealthy family without many friends in the city -- or many friends at all, which was probably why Courfeyrac had been asked to be his best man. The party was small yet festive -- just a few close friends and one or two family members -- but Courfeyrac felt uncharacteristically morose.

“Everything all right?” Marius asked nervously as he approached the table where Courfeyrac was sitting and perched on a chair beside him. “You think the food is terrible, don’t you?”

Courfeyrac placed a reassuring hand on his arm. “Nah, it’s fine. The wine selection could be better, but --” he stopped, sensing Marius’s discomfort at the mild criticism -- “It’s fine. Really.”

Marius took a seat beside him. “So are you going to bring anyone with you to the wedding?” The invitations had just gone out for the event, scheduled for Columbus Day weekend. “Cosette insisted you have a plus one.”

“Probably not,” he said ruefully. “I don’t really have anyone to bring,” he confessed, even as the thought of asking Combeferre crossed his mind.

Trying for some levity, Marius punched him in the arm just a bit too hard, causing Courfeyrac to wince. “Come on, there must be someone from among your collection you’d like to bring with you,” Marius insisted.

Courfeyrac stared at him for a full minute. “The problem is,” he said vaguely. “There actually is.”

Marius grew somber, likely recalling the years-long obsession he had with Cosette. “You’ll get through it,” he reassured him. “I mean, look at me,” he added, indicating his fiancee, who was absolutely radiant as she stood beside her father, talking with guests. “I somehow managed to get it right. So will you,” he said, awkwardly patting Courfeyrac’s knee before going over to join his future wife.

Certainly Marius was no role model for courtship, Courfeyrac thought to himself, wincing at the awkward phone messages and random visits to the house Cosette shared with her father.

But if Marius had managed to find love, maybe there was hope for him after all.

**  
By the time he left the party that night, Courfeyrac was exhausted and slightly drunk on Marius’s cheap wine. As he staggered up the porch stairs, fumbling for his keys, all he wanted to do was collapse on the couch and watch a ballgame until he passed out.

“Hey Courf,” came a familiar small voice from the one of the wicker chairs. “I’m back.”

And as Prouvaire came to him, kissing him with his luscious, skilled mouth and pushing him inside, a single thought was running through Courfeyrac’s mind.

God, I am so fucked.


	4. Chapter 4

Prouvaire was standing alongside the river, clad in a cardigan sweater and jeans despite the warmth of the day. As he watched the river flow by, completely oblivious to the tourists and the homeless people who milled around him, he wondered if he should just throw himself into it — wondered if anyone would ever miss him if he were gone. He should load up his sweater pockets with stones and wade in, and allow the swift current to drag his body to its grave in the Gulf of Mexico. 

His brooding was interrupted by a tinkling noise coming from his pants pocket, indicating an incoming text.

“Don’t you dare go all Virginia Woolf on me,” it read.

Prouvaire pouted at first, then he couldn’t help but to laugh at himself. “Why would you think that?” he texted back, then stares at the screen, anticipating the answer.

“Because I know you too damn well, my dear Jehan,” came the reply.

Sighing, Prouvaire reddened and looked around. “Coffee?” he asked.

“Give me half an hour,” was the reply. “I don’t know where I left my clothes.”

Prouvaire laughed — and wandered away from the river, back toward the Quarter, wondering what he would ever do without his best friend Grantaire.

**

New Orleans was not Prouvaire’s hometown — he was actually from Baton Rouge, where he was the only child of a couple of academics. He had always loved music, and jazz was his first love — jazz was like poetry to him, the kind of music he would sneak off to New Orleans to hear whenever he could.

He himself was a bit of a musical prodigy — he learned to play the piano and the flute at an early age — but his parents insisted that he do something more practical with his life. So he went off to LSU tuition-free, got a degree in the most quintessentially impractical field he could think of — English, with a minor in music — and as soon as he could manage it, he fled his family and their expectations and moved to New Orleans. He managed to find a part time job and started busking on street corners. Eventually he managed to make a few contacts with people who recognized his talent, and he started getting gigs in smaller clubs, which led to gigs in larger clubs, which led to some work as a session artist both in New Orleans, and most recently, up in New York.

Prouvaire was exceptionally talented, but he was also painfully shy around strangers — audience members would come up to him after gigs and praise his performance, and he would blush to the roots of his blond hair and murmur a simple thank you under his breath. It was only when he was truly comfortable with a person that he would open up — about his life and his music and his passions — and the words would gush out of him like a waterfall after the spring rains. Grantaire was one of the few people who could coax Prouvaire out of his shell — they’d met one night on Royal Street when Grantaire was staggered out of a bar and practically knocked Prouvaire and his instrument on the ground, and after a few drinks and an all-night discussion about art and love and politics, they knew they had found kindred spirits, and had been practically inseparable ever since.

Prouvaire’s shyness didn’t help his sex life much either; in contrast to his cynical friend, he was a bit of a romantic, with fantasies of finding a man he could spend the rest of his life with — if only he could find a way to actually talk to one. He had only had three lovers since he had arrived to New Orleans, including Courfeyrac, but it never ended well. Prouvaire was always the one who loved too much — the one who wanted to be loved in addition to being fucked, an ambition none of his lovers tended to share.

He had met Courfeyrac back in the spring, after a gig — Courfeyrac’s natural charm and a few shots of bourbon enabled Prouvaire to open up more than usual, and they had wound up together at Courfeyrac’s apartment. Courfeyrac was marvelously kind to him — he somehow sensed how easily wounded Prouvaire was, so he took such good care of him, letting him wax effusively about his music or holding him when he cried after a critic called his playing “boring.”

But even before he had gone to New York — an opportunity of a lifetime for a young musician — he had felt the relationship was starting to sour. They wanted different things, it seemed — the expectations were different. Courfeyrac just wanted to have fun — to get drunk and get off and have a few laughs — but Prouvaire wanted to fall in love.

And it was hard to imagine falling in love with someone who had called out another man’s name in the middle of having sex.

**

“He did what?” Grantaire asked with a small snort, as he poured some liquid from his flask into his coffee.

“He tried to cover it up, and say he was saying ‘Vaire’ but come on. I was born in the morning, but it wasn’t yesterday morning,” Prouvaire said, wrinkling his nose at the strong smell of liquor. “So I stopped blowing him and refused to start again until he told me who ‘Ferre’ was.”

“So who is he?” Grantaire said, his curiosity obviously piqued.

“This guy he grew up with — Combeferre or something like that. I’ve never met him, honestly — Courfeyrac never took me to meet his friends. I guess they hooked up a few weeks ago, while I was up in New York, and it just started as sex—”

“As such things usually do,” Grantaire supplied.

“—but now Courfeyrac thinks he’s in love with him.” Prouvaire finished.

“What an idiot,” Grantaire scoffed, propping his feet up on the chair beside him. “So what did you do?”

“What do you think I did?” Prouvaire said, peering at him over the foam in his latte.

Leaning back in his chair, Grantaire assessed the situation. “I think you probably felt sorry for him and finished blowing him, and then when it was over you went home and cried over a pint of chocolate ice cream,” Grantaire speculated.

“That’s so not true,” Prouvaire protested, his mouth forming a pout.

“You didn’t go back and blow him?” Grantaire said, raising an eyebrow.

Sighing, Prouvaire buried his head in his arms. “No, I only had mint chocolate chip ice cream. And I don’t even like mint chocolate chip,” he muttered. “Christ, Grantaire, what am I going to do with myself,” he whined.

Grantaire exhaled. “Well, you could go back there and forget it ever happened,” he suggested.

Red-faced, Prouvaire shook his head vigorously. “Never in a million years,” he said, his face betraying his humiliation.

“You could just get shitfaced and forget everything,” Grantaire said, offering him his flask. “It generally works for me.”

Prouvaire blanched. “It’s a little early in the day for that, don’t you think?” Grantaire’s drinking always worried him — he had managed to stay off of hard drugs for the past two and a half years, but he continued to drink prodigiously.

“It’s 5:00 somewhere, right?” Grantaire replied, although he slid the flask into his pocket. “Well, you know what they always say — the only way to get over someone is to get under someone else,” he leered.

“As if you’ve been under anyone else in quite some time,” Prouvaire shot back. He knew that Grantaire had been with many lovers over the years, but as far as he knew, Grantaire was in a very long dry spell.

“Yeah, because I usually top,” Grantaire bragged. “You should see the piece of ass I’ve been topping recently—”

Covering his ears, Prouvaire shook his head. “No, no, no, I don’t want to know.” He knew all about Grantaire’s conquests, but had no desire to picture his friend while he made them.

Suddenly Grantaire grew serious, leaning forward in his chair and stroking Prouvaire’s hand. “Prouvaire, you’ll find him someday. I know you will — and when you do, it will be amazing, I promise.” His face softened for a moment, as if he was recalling something.

“Are you becoming a romantic, Grantaire?” Prouvaire teased.

“No fucking way,” he said, tossing back the last of his coffee/liquor mix. “I just want you to be happy, that’s all. One of us should be, don’t you think?” 

Prouvaire nodded and sipped his coffee thoughtfully, hoping that Grantaire was right.

And that he would be proved right — for the both of them.

**

Three weeks later, on a Saturday evening, Prouvaire was sprawled out across his bed — he had fallen asleep reading his book, and while he slept, darkness had settled upon the city. Fall was coming, and the days were getting shorter — which added to his melancholy mood. 

He picked up his phone to check the time — 10:07 pm — and there was one text, from Grantaire. “Come out tonight,” it said. “It will be good for you.”

Prouvaire rolled over and pulled the pillow over his head — the last thing he wanted to do was to go to a noisy bar and watch as other couples danced and had a good time.

“You can’t stay home forever,” a subsequent text read.

“Yes I can,” Prouvaire said aloud.

“No you can’t,” came the next text. “Put on those skinny jeans I made you buy the other day and let’s go.”

Prouvaire groaned, but he knew Grantaire would just text him until he came out, so he eased himself out of bed and made his way into the bathroom for his first shower in three days. He stood under the stream of warm water for a good 15 minutes, willing himself back to the land of the living. He toweled himself off, but skipped the shave — maybe some stubble would make him look dangerous and sexy. He followed Grantaire’s direction and put on the skinny jeans, and eschewed his usual patterned shirts for a plain white t-shirt.

He stared at his reflection in the mirror, and made a face.

It’ll do, he thought. “It’s not like I’m going to meet the love of my life in a bar,” he said aloud.

And he clattered out the door and off into the night.

**

An hour later he was perched on a barstool, surveying the scene with next Grantaire, who had already consumed several drinks. There was a band playing — Prouvaire tried not to turn his nose up at it, even as he couldn’t help tapping his foot to the beat — so they could just drink with minimal conversation and take in the scene.

“Hey, do you see that bald guy over there?” Grantaire leaned over and shouted in his ear.

Prouvaire glanced over to a corner table, where an attractive, well-dressed man was sitting with a another man whose back was to them. “Very sexy. Are you going to go talk to him?” he asked.

“I told you, I’m already otherwise occupied,” Grantaire said mysteriously. “But I think I know him from somewhere, and I’m trying to remember if it’s because I fucked him.”

“It’s hard to keep them straight, isn’t it?” Prouvaire said with a wry smile, not sure if he was revolted or mesmerized by his best friend’s love life.

“Or did we go pick up women together?” Grantaire mused. “Goddamnit, I’ve been doing this too fucking long.”

“Just go ask him,” Prouvaire encouraged. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Only if you come with me,” Grantaire said, finishing off his drink.

Prouvaire blushed and shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’ll just stay here and let you figure this one out by yourself.”

“Suit yourself,” Grantaire said with a shrug, as he rolled off his barstool and wandered over to the table where the two men were sitting. As Prouvaire watched, Grantaire embraced the bald man, slapping him on the back before he slid into a seat between them. “Come over here,” he mouthed at Prouvaire.

Torn between the awkwardness of sitting at the bar by himself and the awkwardness of making conversations with random friends or ex-lovers of Grantaire’s, Prouvaire hesitated — then finally went over to join them.

“This is Bossuet,” Grantaire said, as Prouvaire approached and the man in question extended his hand. “He helped me with some of my legal problems back in the day,” he explained, giving no indication if the relationship had gone beyond the courtroom or not. Prouvaire guessed it probably had, but had been somehow forgotten in the haze of time and alcohol.

“Pleased to meet you,” Bossuet drawled in a deep, rich voice. Prouvaire certainly could understand it if Grantaire had fallen into bed with him at some point. “And that over there is Joly,” Bossuet said, nodding his head to indicate the fourth man at the table.

Prouvaire turned to look at Joly — and was immediately taken with his wry half-smile. “Hello,” was all Prouvaire could manage to say before he looked away, feeling his cheeks begin to burn.

“You’ll have to excuse my friend Prouvaire,” Grantaire quickly interjected, clearly realizing his friend’s interest in Joly. “The cat has a tendency to get his tongue.”

“Cats are marvelous creatures, aren’t they?” Joly said, deftly changing the subject away from Prouvaire. He was obviously not a native — he spoke in a flat tone that betrayed his New England roots. “When Bossuet and I were together I could never have one. Allergies, you know. But now that he’s moved out, I may try to adopt one. There were so many abandoned after the storm I feel like I should give one a good home.”

“It’s horrible,” Prouvaire agreed — he always had to change the channel when ASPCA ads came on because they would make him cry. “I always feel like I would adopt them all if I could,” he said.

That half-smile appeared again, causing Prouvaire to melt even further. “Me too,” he said, his green eyes locking with Prouvaire’s.

Oh God, I am so fucked, he thought. Is he with Bossuet, though? he wondered. 

“Bossuet’s getting married next month,” Grantaire said, as if in answer to Prouvaire’s question. “What’s her name? Musetta?” he asked.

“Musichetta,” Bossuet corrected him. “A fine girl,” he said. “I managed to get lucky for once in my life. But you know, Joly’s still available,” he said, raising his eyebrows as he glanced over at Prouvaire.

Prouvaire was desperately trying not to show his giddiness at the revelation.

Grantaire chortled. “So is Prouvaire,” he said, to Prouvaire’s mild chagrin. “But let me buy you a shot to celebrate your impending nuptials. It’s the least I could do after all you did for me, Bossy,” he said as he rose from the table, nodding toward the bar.

Bossuet grinned. “As if I’d pass up the opportunity for this asshole to actually pay for a drink,” he said as he followed Grantaire, leaving Prouvaire alone at the table with Joly.

After their friends departed, the two men looked at each other, then each looked away. “So, what do you do?” Joly finally asked.

“I play music,” Prouvaire said, absently peeling the label off his bottle of beer, trying to avoid Joly’s gaze. “I play some in the clubs down here. You?”

“I’m a doctor,” Joly replied. “I came down here after Katrina to help and just — I just never left.” he said. “I guess you could say I fell in love with this place.”

Prouvaire smiled at the idea of this man falling in love. Don’t do this, Prouvaire, he said to himself, don’t get too involved—

“Do you want to dance?” Prouvaire finally blurted.

Joly shook his head slightly. “I don’t dance,” he said. “I have two left feet, and I can’t tell my left from my right most of the time.”

“That’s okay,” Prouvaire assured him. Suddenly he really wanted this man’s arms around him in the worst way. “I’ll show you.” He stood up and extended his hand to Joly.

“I guess if you insist” Joly said, smiling his lovely smile again and allowing Prouvaire to lead him out on the dance floor. A slow song had just begun, and Prouvaire took Joly’s hand and placed it on his waist, taking his other hand in his.

“Just move on the beat,” Prouvaire said in his ear. “Follow my lead.”

They started moving together, and Prouvaire managed to ignore every time Joly missed a beat or stepped on his foot. “I suck at this,” Joly said after one egregious turn. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Prouvaire reassured him with a small laugh. “You’re fine,” he said, not caring in the slightest as he basked in the feel of Joly’s hands on his body.

And as the song came to an end, they didn’t pull apart, instead moving closer together. As Prouvaire closed his eyes, Joly kissed him so softly and sweetly that Prouvaire thought he would die of happiness right there in the middle of the dance floor.

“Do you want to go somewhere else?” Joly murmured as they pulled apart.

“Yes,” Prouvaire whispered, ignoring the triumphant looks from Grantaire, who toasted him from the bar as he allowed Joly to lead him out the door.

**

Later that night Prouvaire was curled up against Joly, his head on his shoulder as he absently stroked Joly’s bare chest, silently thanking Grantaire for the suggestion about the best way to get over someone.

But silently hoping this one wouldn’t break his heart too.


	5. Chapter 5

Joly was a light sleeper, and it was his habit to awaken with the dawn -- his bedroom faced south, and as soon as the bright sunlight would stream through the windows, he would stir into consciousness and wander into the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

But that Saturday morning when the sun came up, he felt no compulsion to leave the comfort of his bed -- a feeling that was mostly related to the young man with the golden curls who was snoring lightly beside him, his body sprawled prone across the covers.

Prouvaire.

They had been doing this just about every night for almost six weeks now -- after Joly finished up at the hospital and Prouvaire finished playing whatever gig he had, they would meet at Joly’s for a late supper, after which they would meander toward the bedroom or some other room in Joly’s apartment, where they would explore each other’s desires and push each other’s limits in all the best ways. They weren’t at the point where Prouvaire was keeping a toothbrush in Joly’s bathroom or claiming a drawer in his dresser -- at least, not yet.

Not that Joly would have minded that in the slightest.

As the room grew brighter, Prouvaire began to stir -- unlike Joly, he seemed to prefer the dark of night -- and opened one eye at Joly, who was propped up on one elbow, watching him. “Morning,” Joly said, letting his fingers graze Prouvaire’s bare back.

“Hey,” Prouvaire said, his tone almost bashful as he turned over on his side to face Joly. His personality ran the gamut from shy, awkward quietude to rampant enthusiasm, Joly had noticed. The first time they had sex, on that first night they met in the bar, he had actually wondered if Prouvaire was a virgin, given the way he blushed and turned away when it was time to take his clothes off.

That theory was blown right out of the water the minute Prouvaire took Joly’s cock into his mouth, displaying a dexterity with his tongue that Joly had never experienced in his life.

“Jesus, where did you learn to do that,” Joly had gasped afterwards.

Prouvaire had looked up at him, grinning as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, all timidity banished in that moment. “Wind players do it best,” he said matter-of-factly.

Joly had started laughing, and was unable to compose himself even as Prouvaire had crawled up on top of him and started nuzzling his neck, his own erection pressing insistently at Joly’s belly. “I need to date more wind players then,” he had finally managed to say.

“Hopefully I’m the only one you’ll ever need,” Prouvaire had murmured as he guided Joly’s hand to his throbbing cock.

And since that night, Joly couldn’t even imagine needing anyone else.

“What do you have planned for today?” he asked Prouvaire, stroking his soft curls, hoping perhaps he was free for the day.

“I should probably go by my apartment and water my plants and get the mail. And I have a gig tonight,” Prouvaire said, practically purring at the feel of Joly’s fingers in his hair. “You should come hear me play,” he suggested. Joly was usually working when Prouvaire was playing, so he had yet to see him doing what he loved.

Joly was enthralled at the idea, although he knew absolutely nothing about music. “So I can see the other things you can do with your mouth?” he teased, kissing him fully on the lips.

“Your mouth isn’t so bad either,” he replied, grinning against Joly’s lips and letting his hands explore below Joly’s waist.

Joly growled and rolled Prouvaire onto his back, pressing him against the mattress and kissing him hungrily. As they came together, pushing each other to the brink and pulling each other over, he was happier than he had been since he had first moved to New Orleans.

Maybe, he thought as they lay together afterwards, their bodies a warm tangle amid the sheets, it was love.

Finally.

**  
Joly was not a native of New Orleans -- to the chagrin of most of people he met in the city, he wasn’t even a Southerner. He was a New Englander, born and bred, the product of a leafy Boston suburb. He too was an only child, with two older parents who coddled him and gave him every advantage -- they sent him to a small, tony prep school, which was followed by four years at a small college in Maine. He hated most of it -- he got along well enough with his fellow students, but he never entirely felt like he fit in. He was a constant worrier -- about his grades, about his health, about whether he’d remembered to lock his door when he left for the weekend -- which drove most of his friends and roommates crazy.

After college he started medical school in Boston, during which time Katrina hit the city of New Orleans. He was down at his parents’ Cape house that weekend, watching the coverage on TV with a sense first of foreboding, then of outrage.

And week later, he loaded up his Honda Civic and drove straight through the night to Louisiana to offer his services as best he could -- and he had never left.

There were plenty of times he thought about leaving New Orleans -- his parents had retired and were getting older, and he felt a sense of obligation to be closer to them, even as they encouraged him to stay and keep up his important work. In the weeks leading up to his first encounter with Prouvaire, he had actually been actively looking for jobs back on the East Coast -- a consequence of the end of his relationship with Bossuet.

Joly had met Bossuet not long after his arrival in the city, when Bossuet had come into the clinic Joly was working at, nursing a head wound that he had sustained in the rebuilding of his house. Over the course of their conversation, Joly learned that Bossuet had lost everything in the storm except the clothes on his back and an unflagging optimism that things were going to get better. Joly ended up taking him in and letting him sleep on his couch -- although it did not take long for Bossuet to charm his way into Joly’s bed. It started out casually -- just a way for them to blow off steam -- but it quickly became a habit between them. Before they knew it, they were like a old married couple, spending their free time buying antiques and having brunches and bickering constantly.

Joly loved Bossuet -- he loved his unflappable nature and the way he turned on the charm with everyone, whether it was a family member or a client or even the cashier at the grocery store. Bossuet was hugely calming to Joly as well -- with him by his side, Joly found himself worrying less and enjoying himself more. Bossuet was his first boyfriend -- none of his various hook-ups in college had lasted much beyond the evening itself -- and he had always felt sure that they would somehow be together forever.

But everything started to change almost exactly a year ago, when the two men were out on an antiquing excursion out along the river road. At one shop they encountered a petite, dark-haired woman who was examining a chest-on-chest with the most stunningly pale eyes Joly had ever seen. Bossuet started talking to her, leaning suggestively against the wall while learning all about her Cajun heritage and her job as a decorative arts curator at the art museum. But Joly could merely gawk at her, feeling like an uncertain teenager -- he had never been particularly attracted to women, but suddenly he was questioning his sexual orientation that in his mind had been completely settled years ago. They invited her to dinner, which turned into after-dinner drinks, which turned into a drunken tumble into bed.

It was great fun for all involved -- at least for a while.

But as the relationship progressed, Joly began to feel like the third wheel in the relationship -- Bossuet and Musichetta both worked day jobs, so they would spend evenings together while Joly was still at work. When he did finally come home, they were consistently happy to see him -- but it was becoming clear that they were getting closer to each other, sharing a deeper intimacy with each other than either one shared with Joly, even though he and Bossuet had shared so many years together.

The turning point had come in the spring. Joly had been back in Boston for most of the month of March, as his father had fallen and broken his hip and he needed to be back in Boston to help his parents deal with the subsequent surgery and rehab. When he returned to New Orleans, Bossuet and Musichetta welcomed him back with open arms, both literally and figuratively. But they were not together for long -- Joly had lots of appointments to catch up on, Bossuet was in the middle of a case, and Musichetta was curating an exhibition, so their time together was considerably reduced.

And then on a rainy day in June, Joly came back to the apartment he shared with Bossuet to find his boyfriend and girlfriend sitting soberly on the couch.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, looking back and forth between them, his heart in his throat.

“I’m pregnant,” Musichetta blurted, as Bossuet grasped her hand.

Joly’s mouth gaped open as he collapsed onto the chair. He had never thought about the possibility of being a father -- being an only child, he didn’t tend to interact a lot with kids -- but the fleeting thought of raising a little boy or girl sounded immediately appealing. “How far along are you?” he asked.

“Three months,” she said, refusing to meet his eyes.

In his head Joly quickly did the math -- and realized that with his trip back up North, there was no possible way the baby was his. “Congratulations, dad,” he said to Bossuet. “I know it will be tight, but I think the apartment can hold all three of us, plus a baby--”

“I asked Musichetta to marry me,” Bossuet interrupted him, his face uncharacteristically solemn. “And she said yes.”

Joly felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him. “Oh,” was all he could manage to say. 

“We’ve been talking about it for weeks, and it’s for the best. We’ve started looking at houses together,” Bossuet explained, rising to embrace the shell-shocked Joly, stroking the side of his face and kissing him gently on the lips. “But you’ll be the best uncle ever, I know it.”

And Joly nodded, not knowing what else to say or do.

After an uncomfortable two weeks of sleeping on the couch, he finally moved out, renting the small apartment near the hospital where he now lived. He stayed in touch with both of his former lovers, taking Musichetta out for lunch and meeting Bossuet for drinks, but he felt as if he had been set completely adrift. He spent most of his days and nights alone, sleeping way too little and thinking way too much, wondering if he would ever find someone to love him.

And then he met Prouvaire.

Joly was instantly entranced by him -- he was so unlike Bossuet, with his shy smile and his awkward manner, as well as his torrential passions, both in and out of the bedroom. With Prouvaire he felt an intense attachment he had never felt before -- not with Bossuet, who had simply meandered into his life and stayed, like a stray cat looking for his next meal. He could not stop thinking about Prouvaire -- at work, in the car, in the shower, his thoughts kept wandering to the young musician.

Was he in love? He wasn’t sure, although it certainly felt that way. But he wasn’t sure if he dared think about it that way -- he knew Prouvaire was also just getting out of a relationship, and probably didn’t want a boyfriend right away, he was sure. Maybe they should just keep it casual -- just enjoy each other’s company and see where it went.

But there was one thing he knew for sure: when Prouvaire was not around, he missed him desperately.

And he had never felt that way with Bossuet.

**

As Joly walked into the club that night, he wasn’t entirely comfortable -- he was not a regular denizen of the jazz clubs, so he was a bit anxious about what to expect. The place was as dark as a tomb, so Joly had to squint to see anything, and there was so much smoke in the air Joly felt sure he would develop lung cancer by the end of the evening.

Prouvaire was nowhere to be found, but he did finally make out one recognizable face: Grantaire, who was perched at the bar and raised a glass in his direction. “So the two of you decided to finally get out of bed, eh?” Grantaire said, punching him in the arm lightly as he took a seat next to him.

“It was difficult, but we managed,” Joly replied with a sideways glance. Grantaire had always been a friend of a friend to him, so he didn’t know him well -- he thought that perhaps Bossuet had handled some legal work for him, and Joly was fairly sure they’d slept together at some point before Bossuet and Joly started dating -- but did know that Prouvaire spoke of him with such tremendous reverence.

“I know that feeling,” Grantaire leered. “I could barely get out of bed myself today,” he said, gulping down the rest of his gin and tonic and motioning for another. “But for Prouvaire I’d do anything--” he trailed off, looking pointedly at Joly.

“I understand,” Joly said carefully, swallowing hard under Grantaire’s stern gaze.

“He’s special, you know?” Grantaire continued. “I’ve never met anyone with as big a heart as he has. And the last guy he was with kind of dicked him over. I don’t know if he told you about it. Decided to take up with some other guy while Prouvaire was out of town.”

Joly shook his head. “He never told me that,” he admitted. Prouvaire had mentioned a couple of ex-lovers briefly, but always shied away from providing many details -- unlike Joly, who had shared the entire sordid tale of his life with Bossuet and Musichetta the first morning they woke up together.

“So don’t do that, okay?” Grantaire said, grasping his arm, his eyes turning dark. “Don’t go running back to Bossuet or something as soon as his back is turned. Don’t fuck with him.” As he spoke, the musicians started taking the stage to loud applause from the crowd. “I know how he talks about you,” he whispered in Joly’s ear, which brought a warm glow to Joly’s face, a glow that deepened as Prouvaire appeared and gave the two of them a little wave.

Then, as the crowd simmered down, Prouvaire began to play -- tentatively at first, but soon allowing the music to take flight, eyes closed as he coaxed the notes from his instrument. Even Joly, with his limited knowledge of music, could discern his brilliant musicianship and the emotionality of his playing. After each song, the applause was rapturous -- and Prouvaire would bow his head, blushing slightly but with a smile so sweet the crowd was completely charmed.

“Oh my God, he’s beautiful,” Joly heard a young woman say beside him after the first set. “Do you think he’s seeing anyone?” she asked her friend.

Joly glanced over at Grantaire, who was practically falling off the barstool with laughter. “Looks like you have competition,” he chortled, clinking his glass against Joly’s.

“I think I have a leg-up,” Joly replied with a wry smile. “So to speak,” he said, which set Grantaire off into gales of laughter again.

When Prouvaire returned for his second set, Joly could not take his eyes off him, watching him play with a mixture of pride and adoration.

And as the night wore on, it became more and more obvious to Joly that his pride and adoration had a third element: love.

**  
At the end of the night, Grantaire begged off -- he had received a mysterious text as they waited for Prouvaire to come out the back door of the club, which led him to beat a hasty retreat before he arrived. When Prouvaire finally emerged, he made a beeline for Joly, practically tackling him with a hug. “What did you think?” he asked, pulling back and eagerly searching Joly’s face for a response.

“Amazing,” was the only adjective Joly could come up with. He wished he had brought him something -- maybe some flowers, or some cupcakes from that bakery they liked.

Prouvaire was beaming. “I’m so glad. I was sure you would hate it. I’ve seen your CD collection,” he said, blanching at Joly’s musical taste, which ran more toward angsty singer-songwriters and whatever passed for top 40 music those days.

“No, I loved it,” Joly repeated, leaning down and pecking him on the lips. “Absolutely loved it.” And loved you, he almost said, but thought the better of it.

Prouvaire craned his neck to peer over Joly’s shoulder. “Where’s Grantaire?”

Joly shrugged. “I have no idea -- he got a text and took off.”

“Weird,” Prouvaire said, shaking his head. “He’s been doing that a lot lately. I have no idea what’s going on with him.”

Joly laughed and took him by the hand, lacing his fingers with Prouvaire’s as they started to walk toward Joly’s apartment. “Maybe he’s fallen in love,” he theorized, although even as he said it he realized he didn’t know Grantaire at all; he was probably projecting his own feelings for Prouvaire onto a man he barely knew.

“I hope so,” Prouvaire said dreamily, leaning his head on Joly’s shoulder as they strolled through the shadowy streets of the Quarter. “He certainly deserves it after all he’s been through in his life. Though I have no idea who it would be. Grantaire’s not one to give his heart so quickly. Not like me,” he said, tightening his grip on Joly’s hand. 

“But that’s one of the things I love best about you,” Joly said, trying to sound casual but failing miserably.

Prouvaire stopped dead in his tracks. “That you love about me?” he asked, turning to stare at him with a look of complete wonder on his face.

Joly paused and took a deep breath, then finally screwed up his courage to speak. “I know we’ve only been together for a short time, but I’ve never felt this way about anyone efore. Not Bossuet, not Musichetta -- not anyone.” He took a deep breath, hoping he was not scaring him. “I love you,” he said, his voice soft and tender as he watched Prouvaire’s face for a reaction.

As he watched him, Prouvaire visibly exhaled. “I love you, too,” he said, the words tumbling out of him in a torrent. “God, you don’t want to know how long I’ve wanted to say that -- but I was so afraid you didn’t feel the same way, what with the whole Bossuet thing, and-- Joly, I think I’ve loved you since the night we met,” he confessed.

“Me too,” Joly admitted. He had never been a believer in love at first sight -- it was something he thought happened to other people, not rational people like himself.

Prouvaire’s blue eyes were shining with tears. “I’ve waited my whole life to hear someone say that to me.”

“So have I,” Joly said, pulling Prouvaire into his arms, recalling the journey that had brought him to this moment -- and happy to have finally reached its end.


	6. Chapter 6

“Come over.”

The text was terse, as texts from Enjolras always were — Enjolras was never one for pleasantries. But that suited Grantaire just fine, as he favored directness over politeness anytime. “Just send me a text that says ‘fuck me’ and I’ll be there,” he had breezily told Enjolras at one point after their first night together. Enjolras, being a literal sort, did just that a few times, until the one time Prouvaire snatched his phone away from him and saw the text.

“‘Fuck me’?” Prouvaire had asked. “Who is that?”

Snatching the phone away from him, Grantaire had shoved it into his pocket. “Must be a wrong number,” he had mumbled.

After that he had words with Enjolras, and his texts went back to being G-rated — not that the texts still didn’t have the power to get Grantaire to jump at a moment’s notice, to run to Enjolras’s sparse apartment and spend the evening catering to the blond’s every whim.

And that night at the jazz club was no exception.

Grantaire was an observant sort, the kind of person who stood aside from everyone and watched events unfold in front of him — it’s what had drawn him to art in the first place, as a way to capture his own impressions of the world in front of him. And that night he had watched his best friend, the man who had been there for him in so many ways over the years, as he played the music he adored. He’d watched Prouvaire so often — loved watching him as his fingers worked the keys and his eyes glazed over in a rhapsodic manner.

And, then to watch as Joly saw him for the first time, his own eyes gazing upon him with such reverence and yes, love.

Normally Grantaire would scoff at the whole thing, write off Prouvaire’s ideas of romance as overly idealistic.

But watching the two men as they were falling in love left him feeling a bit empty for the first time he could remember.

It was almost as if he wanted something like this for himself.

But he was convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that it would never happen.

**

Like Enjolras, Grantaire was a native of New Orleans, but from a very New Orleans than that of his lover — his was a childhood of moving from shotgun house to shotgun house as his mother tried to keep one step ahead of the debt collectors. He was an indifferent student, despite the fact that various tests put his intelligence levels off the charts — he could manage to get passing grades with very little effort, and he had no desire to do better. He ended up at a Catholic boys’ school for high school, where he was in constant danger of getting thrown out — for drinking, for gambling, for being found with his hands up the plaid skirt of a student at their sister school down the street. He would have dropped out at 16, if not for one thing: his art class.

Grantaire had always loved to draw — during classes, when he should have been taking notes, he was making sketches of his classmates, and when he got older, he would sometimes take his sketchbook to Jackson Square on weekends, where he created and sold quick charcoal portraits of tourists. The only time he was ever truly engaged with school was when he stepped into the art room, where he could pick up a brush or some charcoal and lose himself in the worlds he was creating for himself. The school’s lone art teacher, a man by the name of Gros, took him under his wing and worked with him to hone his technique, taking him to the art museum or to study works of art by great masters.

“You have a gift, Grantaire,” he had told him on numerous occasions. “Use it.”

It was the first time in his life anyone had ever said that to him.

By the time he reached his senior year, Grantaire still had no idea what he wanted to do after high school, but under Gros’s tutelage he began to conjure up a plan: a plan to attend art school. With Gros’s help, he put together a portfolio and his applications — and managed to get in just about everywhere he applied. He ended up choosing the School of the Art Institute of Chicago — he had never been to the city, but he knew it had a great art scene, and that for him it would be a fresh start.

Ultimately he hated Chicago — it was too cold for his Southern blood, and his fellow students tended to be wealthy suburban hipsters whiling away their parents’ money. He spent two years there, bouncing from the studios to the local bars to the beds of various women — and, for the first time, of men. But he had a hard time keeping his grades up, so after his sophomore year, he decided to take a year off and go home. He moved back to New Orleans, rented his own place on the top floor of a house, and took a job in a gallery. Being back home inspired him — he was painting more and better works, making contacts with the local art scene, and was, for the first time in his life, generally happy.

Then Katrina came along.

Grantaire didn’t have a TV, nor did he have a car, but he had weathered several hurricanes in his life and he was confident it wouldn’t hit the city. He bought copious amounts of liquor and paint, and settled in to ride it out. The winds and rain that accompanied the storm itself were harrowing, but the house still stood — until the levees broke.

As the water rose, Grantaire eventually had to use a hatchet to cut a hole in his roof, where he remained for hours waiting for the Coast Guard to rescue him, seeing so many things he desperately wished he could unsee.

When the water receded, and he was finally able to get back to his house, he discovered that he had lost everything — including a career’s worth of artwork.

And it sent Grantaire into a tailspin.

He never went back to the gallery, even though it was in the section of the city that hadn’t been flooded. Instead he took on some odd jobs here and there — finding under the table short term jobs was easy in the days after the deluge — but most of his cash was turned in to liquor, as he found himself frequenting bars as he never had before. It was alcoholism born of despair, of an all-consuming hopelessness that things would ever get better. When alcohol wasn’t enough, he turned to other things — most notably heroin, which was flowing into the city at a record pace to keep up with demand.

He got arrested a couple of times and found himself in jail, which was how he met Bossuet, a smooth talking public defender who managed to get a possession charge converted into a public intoxication charge. After that, whenever he was too drunk to find his keys or even find his way back to his fleabag apartment, Grantaire spent an occasional night on Bossuet’s couch — and one in his bed, when Joly was away for the weekend, although Grantaire was still hazy on the exact details of their evening together. Bossuet tried to gently nudge him toward help, but Grantaire wouldn’t listen — after all, what was the point,

And then he met Prouvaire.

They met by chance — Grantaire was literally stumbling out of a bar in the French Quarter when he ran into Prouvaire, who was playing on the street for money. Most people would have pushed Grantaire away, but Prouvaire embraced him, literally and figuratively — giving him a place to stay, listening to him talk, distracting him with tales of his nomadic life as a musician — and loving him unconditionally, even when he snapped at Prouvaire impatiently or withdrew to the darkness of his bedroom for days at a time.

It was Prouvaire who finally pushed him toward kicking his drug habit — and to Grantaire’s surprise, he was there for him on the other side.

Bossuet was there too, lining him up a full-time job with the help of his girlfriend Musichetta — working at the art museum teaching art classes to kids who were younger versions of himself, kids who hated school but loved art and looked up to him for some reason. And once he had been working for a while, Prouvaire helped him to find the loft he was living in now, helping him move — and, at the suggestion of Grantaire’s new neighbor, Feuilly, buying him a housewarming gift: an easel, canvases, paintbrushes, some gesso, and paint.

It went without saying that Grantaire wasn’t quite ready for this — for three weeks he left the gift in the corner of the apartment, while he mustered up the courage to start again. It happened late one night, around 3 am, when he couldn’t sleep. He placed the canvas on the easel and stared at it for a long time. After half an hour, he gessoed it.

And then he went back to bed.

The next night he tried again, but he found himself staring at the easel dumbfounded. In a fit of rage, borne of his anger at the storm and his artist’s block and the loss of all of his work and the fact that he couldn’t drown his sorrows in smack, he knocked the canvas on the floor.

And then he mixed his paints, and began throwing the pigment at the canvas. He knew even as he did it he was living up to the stereotype, that he was channeling Pollock and so many artists before who’d dealt with loss and abuse.

But that night he’d slept better than he ever had since the storm.

**

And then he met Enjolras.

At first the attraction was purely physical — to Grantaire, Enjolras was simply physically beautiful, with his intense blue eyes and wavy hair, and Grantaire hadn’t had a single lover since he could remember, a dry spell that was starting to take its toll. But after that first confrontation outside the apartment building, Grantaire couldn’t stop thinking about not just his body but his mind as well — he was both infuriatingly obtuse and blindingly appealing. He grilled Feuilly about him — “are you homing in on my turf?” Feuilly teased — but refused Feuilly’s offers to give him his phone number.

“We’re just fucking,” Feuilly explained. “A friends with benefits thing, you know. So if you want a piece of that, I certainly have other places to go—”

Grantaire put up his hand. “That’s fine. I don’t think I’m ready for that,” he had said, even though he thought it would be just what he needed.

But two weeks later, when he got a text from a strange number, introducing himself as “that trust fund asshole,” he knew that Enjolras must have gotten it from Feuilly.

So he invited him over for a drink — although with Enjolras mostly a teetotaller, the beverage of choice ended up being sweet tea. Enjolras had walked around the apartment, inspecting Grantaire’s furniture, and finally pausing in front of a large canvas Grantaire was working on.

“This is amazing,” Enjolras said, sipping his tea with a pensive look on his face, looking like every parody of a phony art patron.

As he came up behind him, Grantaire couldn’t help but to scoff at him. “Do you have any fucking clue what you’re looking at?”

Enjolras turned and looked at him with those blue eyes, suddenly not so fierce under Grantaire’s gaze. “Not in the slightest,” he admitted, without a trace of sheepishness at his faux appreciation of Grantaire’s art. “I figure you’ll tell me eventually.”

At that Grantaire abruptly kissed him — a kiss that was hard and wet and demanding. “Only if you let me fuck you,” he said when they came up for air.

Enjolras grabbed the ragged collar of Grantaire’s t-shirt and returned the kiss with a kiss that was equally demanding. “I think that can be arranged,” he said, as he moved toward the ancient couch.

It was a hasty coupling, with all of the awkwardness of a first time — including the fact that Grantaire’s pent-up frustration was released all too quickly inside a remarkably tight Enjolras.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Grantaire said, as he rolled off the couch as best he could with his jeans tugged down his thighs. “It’s not usually like that,” he grumbled.

Still on all fours, his own pants in a pile on the floor, Enjolras peeked over his shoulder at him. “You’ll do better the next time,” he remarked.

Grantaire ignored the implied insult in the first three words — he was certainly used to being told he needed to do better — and focused on the fact that the second three words hinted at the possibility that there would actually be a next time.

Their assignations continued for weeks, usually starting out the same way: a commanding text from Enjolras, followed by an exchange of logistical considerations, followed by Enjolras’s arrival at Grantaire’s apartment. There were certain ground rules: they always met at Grantaire’s, they always got right to the sex, and they always steered clear of speaking about their personal lives. Grantaire would talk about his artwork, and Enjolras would talk about his organizing work. And they would constantly argue about politics, about the city, about the relative futility of trying to create change.

But that was as far as it went. As far as Grantaire knew, Enjolras was not aware of anything that had happened in Grantaire’s past — of his childhood and his stint at art school, of Katrina or rehab or even his best friend Prouvaire — and he never asked. And Grantaire only knew the barest of facts about Enjolras — sure, he’d Googled him, but he’d only found a little bit about his society family, and a couple of stories in the Times-Picayune about some protests he’d been involved with.

But he did know that he lived for those stolen moments with him.

Grantaire wanted desperately to talk to someone about it, but every time he got close to confiding in Prouvaire he stopped — he knew his friend would get his hopes up on his behalf, and Grantaire knew far too well that things never seemed to work out for him like they did for other people.

But when he was over at Feuilly’s one night, perched on a chair in his kitchen watching Feuilly make dinner for the both of them — Grantaire was not above mooching off his friend for meals whenever he could — he decided to finally talk about it with the one person who knew about their relationship.

“So what’s really the deal with our blond boyfriend?” Grantaire finally blurted.

Feuilly laughed as he chopped up some vegetables. “More like your blond boyfriend. I’ve not seen him in weeks.” he said.

“Really,” Grantaire mused, a smug smile on his face.

“Yes, really,” Feuilly answered. “You know damn well that it’s you he texts now, not me.”

A flicker of sympathy crossed Grantaire’s face. “I’m sorry, man — I’m not usually one for moving in on other people’s turf—”

With a wave of his hand, Feuilly dismissed him. “It’s cool. I have my eyes on a replacement,” he said, smacking his lips at the thought.

Grantaire chortled. “Well done, sir,” he said. “But back to Enjy — what’s his deal? I know almost nothing about him other than what he looks like naked.”

Feuilly grinned at the thought. “Other than that he hates being called Enjy?” Grantaire flipped him the finger. “Well, I know he has a small legal practice in the Treme. Lots of small stuff — divorces and probate and landlord issues. Stuff like that. He gets shit done, though, you know? He helped me get my job back, with back pay, after they accused me of stealing from them.” He dumped the vegetables into a saute pan and turned on the stove.

“But what about the rest?”

Feuilly sighed. “I don’t think he talks much to his family — he’s an only child, and I think they’re kind of disappointed in him for not going off and making shitloads of money somewhere. Can’t embarrass them among their friends, you know. As for friends — I think he has a couple of buddies he grew up with that he sees a lot but I never met them. Some unintelligible French names I can never remember. But just ask him. I’m sure he’d tell you.”

“He never told you,” Grantaire pointed out.

“Because I think it’s different between you guys. We were just getting each other off. The two of you — I don’t know man, it’s different.”

Grantaire got up and wandered over to the refrigerator and helped himself to a can of soda. “If by different you mean frustrating as hell,” he said, popping the top and taking a long swig.

Feuilly turned back to the stove. “Oh, but it’s sweet frustration, is it not?”

Grantaire didn’t reply, not wanting admit aloud that his neighbor was right.

**

“So have you told anyone about us?” Grantaire asked one rainy night, as they sat on the couch — Grantaire in a ratty bathrobe with his feet up on the ottoman, while Enjolras lay with his legs across Grantaire’s lap, reading the news on his phone.

Enjolras didn’t bother looking up. “No. Why?”

“I’m starting to think I must be your secret shame,” he said, only half-joking. “Like you can’t take me out in public or something.”

Enjolras put his phone aside and looked at him directly. “I don’t really have anyone to tell,” he said, sounding slightly annoyed at the question. “My mother told me never to bring a guy home with me because my father wouldn’t approve. And my friends — I don’t know. I’ve never talked to them about those things.”

“You have friends?” Grantaire said, eyebrows raised.

“Yes, I have friends. One of them teaches at Tulane, and the other owns a restaurant. We get together for drinks every so often. Talk politics. No big deal. I’ve known them forever”

“So why haven’t you ever introduced us?” Grantaire demanded.

“You’ve never taken me to meet your friends,” Enjolras pointed out, his tone betraying an annoyance at this line of questioning. “The only other person we ever see is Feuilly.”

Grantaire snorted. “Who could I possibly introduce you to? Other than Prouvaire, but he has a new boyfriend so I hardly see him anymore myself.” Grantaire knew he sounded bitter, but he didn’t much care. “But I just get this sense you’re ashamed of me.”

“That’s in your head, Grantaire,” Enjolras snapped, rolling off the couch and rooting around on the floor for his shirt. “I should go.”

Suddenly Grantaire was equally annoyed with him. “That’s probably a good idea,” he retorted, his voice cold as he reached over for the remote control for the TV and started to flip through the channels.

“See you around?” Enjolras asked, as he picked up his bag.

Not looking up at him, Grantaire shrugged, focusing his attention on the baseball game he had stopped on. “Sure, I guess.”

As the apartment door slammed behind Enjolras, a single thought crossed Grantaire’s mind: God, I need a hit — of something, anything.

That night ended up being excruciatingly long, as he stayed awake all night, running through all of the channels on the TV, itching to get in his car and drive down to the neighborhoods where he knew he could get a hit, to forget everything that had happened that night and on every other night in his sad life. He was sweaty and anxious and hurting from all of the slights in his life, both real and imagined.

But when the sun rose the next morning, he was still somehow clean.

**

Grantaire had no idea when he would ever hear from Enjolras again — or even if he’d hear from him again. Just in case he never let his phone out of his sight, anticipating the swooshing sound indicating an incoming text and constantly checking to be sure the phone was functioning.

“What the hell are you doing?” Prouvaire asked him two weeks later, as he watched Grantaire fiddle with his phone over dinner at their favorite hole-in-the-wall on a Thursday night — Joly was at the hospital, but Prouvaire wasn’t playing that night, so he had managed to carve some time out of his schedule to see Grantaire. “You’re making me nervous,” he added.

Grantaire couldn’t keep it in any longer — he needed to tell someone about it, and there was no one else who would understand other than Prouvaire. “I’m waiting to hear from someone. A guy, actually, ” he confessed.

Prouvaire put down his fork and stared at him. “A guy,” he repeated.

“It’s no big deal,” Grantaire replied, avoiding his friend’s gaze by looking out the window instead. “I just met him one night in my building, and one thing turned into another, and —” he trailed off, thinking of the last time they were together. “But of course I managed to fuck it up, as I always do.”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” Prouvaire reassured him. “How long has it been since you heard from — what’s this guy’s name?”

“Enjolras,” Grantaire said, loving how his name rolled off his tongue. “And it’s been couple of weeks. I’m sure he never wants to talk to me again,” Grantaire muttered, slumping in his seat.

“Did you try texting him?” Prouvaire asked matter-of-factly.

Grantaire made a face. “No. He usually texts me when he wants me, and clearly — well, clearly he just doesn’t want me.”

“I doubt that,” Prouvaire scoffed, as he snatched Grantaire’s phone off the table. “Enjolras, you said his name was?” he asked, as he opened up Grantaire’s list of contacts and started composing a text.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Grantaire said, reaching for his phone.

“Too late,” Prouvaire said, hitting send and tossing the phone on the table. “All I wrote was ‘hey, how’s it going.’ The rest is up to you.”

Grantaire glared at him. “Fuck you,” he said, furious at his friend for interfering and at himself for telling him about Enjolras.

But then the phone buzzed with an incoming text.

Grantaire ignored the smug look on Prouvaire’s face and opened the text. “Come over to the Musain and meet my friends,” it read. “He wants me to come out and meet him tonight. To meet his friends,” Grantaire told Prouvaire. “I thought he was ashamed of me,” he said, half to himself.

“Well, go then,” Prouvaire commanded him. “Get the hell out of here.”

“Come with me,” Grantaire blurted. “You can meet him too. And his friends, whoever they are.”

“Sure, why not?” Prouvaire said, flagging down their server. “I desperately want to meet the man who captured the heart of my dearest Grantaire,” he teased.

“He didn’t capture my heart,” Grantaire replied, as he dug into his back pocket for his wallet.

But deep down, he had a feeling Prouvaire was right.

**

The Musain was crowded when Grantaire and Prouvaire arrived. Grantaire peered through the crowd in search of Enjolras, finally spotting him as he stood at the end of the bar, dressed casually in a red t-shirt and jeans. “That’s him in the red,” he shouted in Prouvaire’s ear.

Prouvaire nodded his approval. “Not bad,” he said.

Grantaire had rehearsed what he would say in the car on the way over, but when he was finally in front of him, all he could manage to say was, “Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” Enjolras said, looking Grantaire up and down. “You must be Prouvaire,” he said, extending his hand to the young musician. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“I’d never even heard of you before tonight,” Prouvaire told him. “Though I wish I had,” he added, smiling sideways at Grantaire.

Enjolras flashed a rare smile at them both, then picked his drink up off the bar. “Combeferre has a table for us,” he explained as he began threading his way through the crowd toward the back of the bar, where two men — one dark-haired, one blond, were carrying on an animated conversation, oblivious to their approach. The dark-haired one had his hand on the blond’s arm as they laughed at some joke only the two of them understood. Were these two guys a couple? Grantaire wondered. Was this going to be some awkward double date thing? he thought. He glanced over at Prouvaire, hoping he hadn’t inadvertently turned him into a third wheel — and quickly noticed that Prouvaire had inexplicably turned a ghostly shade of white.

“Are you okay—” Grantaire started to ask his friend, but he was interrupted by Enjolras.

“Meet my two best friends,” he said, sounding like a proud father. “This is Combeferre,” he said, pointing at the blond, who quickly pulled away from the dark-haired man and offered his. “And that’s Courfeyrac,” Enjolras said, indicating the other man, who had suddenly turned a similar shade of pale to that of Prouvaire.

“Oh God,” Grantaire murmured, recalling Prouvaire’s tale of Courfeyrac calling out another man’s name the last time they’d had sex before breaking up.

The name, Grantaire realized as he looked back and forth between his best friend and his ex-lover, must have been Combeferre.

It was so often said that New Orleans was a remarkably small city — and it had never felt as small as it did just then in that particular corner of the Musain.


	7. Chapter 7

One week later, Combeferre found himself on his knees in a tiny Catholic chapel in Uptown, lost in thought as he peered up at the rose window above the altar.

It was Marius and Cosette’s wedding day, and he was there not as a friend of Marius’s -- personally, the man drove him more than a little crazy at times, and they had had words with each other more than once -- but as Courfeyrac’s plus one.

“So does that make me your boyfriend now?” he had asked Courfeyrac a few days before, when he came over to his apartment late at night and handed him the invitation, explaining that he had called Marius and wheedled an extra plate out of him, despite the fact that the RSVP deadline had long passed.

Courfeyrac had cocked his head at him, his dark eyes sparkling. “What do you think?”

“I suppose it does,” Combeferre shrugged. “If you’re taking me out in public and everything.”

“Then that settles it,” Courfeyrac had said with a determined air, as he leaned over to kiss Combeferre lightly on the lips. “You’re all mine now.”

Combeferre had pushed him away before he went into his bedroom to fish his one little-used suit from the closet, planning to take it to the dry cleaners the next day, but secretly he was pleased to hear those words coming from his friend -- no, he corrected himself, his boyfriend.

The only nagging problem was Enjolras.

It was obvious from the moment the words “we’re dating” were out of Combeferre’s mouth that night at the Musain that Enjolras was angry -- his blue eyes had become narrow slits, and his face had turned as red as the shirt he was wearing. It was a fury he normally reserved for recalcitrant public officials, and the tongue-lashing he gave them was equally strong, even as his boyfriend tried to remind him that he hadn’t exactly been forthcoming about his own romantic status.

Ultimately Enjolras had stalked out of the Musain, with Grantaire following behind him -- and neither of them had heard from him since, despite numerous texts and calls.

Combeferre was not an especially religious man, but as the priest droned on, and the wan autumn sunlight streamed through the pinkish hues of the stained glass, he offered up a small prayer that everything would work out all right.

“Are you okay?” Courfeyrac said to him outside the church as they stood watching Marius and Cosette pose for pictures. He was resplendent in an expensive black suit and a kelly green silk tie, the sunlight giving his brown hair reddish highlights.

Combeferre shoved his hands in his suit pockets and ground the toe of his shoe into the sidewalk. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just -- I’m worried about this whole Enjolras thing.”

“He’ll come around,” Courfeyrac said, searching his face. “You know what he’s like. For a guy who wants to change the world, he doesn’t take too well to change in his personal life. Relax, cher,” he said, putting an arm around him and pecking him on the cheek, which earned him a glare from one of Marius’s officious-looking relatives. “Pretty soon we’ll have access to the open bar, and I only need to stay sober enough to say something nice about Marius, so then we can get drunk and dance like the idiots we are.”

A wan smile crossed Combeferre’s face. “Speak for yourself, my friend. I am told I am a very good dancer,” he asserted, standing up straighter as he uttered the words.

“I’m sure,” Courfeyrac said sarcastically, as he glanced over at Marius, who was beckoning wildly for Courfeyrac to join him for photographs. “But I’d better go keep this dumbass in line. He’s going to owe me big time when I get married.”

“I thought you were never getting married,” Combeferre called out to him as he was walking away.

Courfeyrac turned around and started walking backwards. “Maybe I’ve changed my mind,” he replied with a wink.

Combeferre rolled his eyes and looked away, but he could not suppress a grin at this new, more romantic side of Courfeyrac.

Maybe everything would indeed be all right, he thought, no matter what happened with Enjolras.

But as if in answer to his prayer, as the two men approached Courfeyrac’s house, they were greeted by a sight for sore eyes: it was Enjolras, sitting on the stoop, waiting for them to come home.

As they approached, he rose to his feet, and uttered two words that neither Combeferre or Courfeyrac could recall ever coming from his lips. “I’m sorry,” he said, before either of his friends could say anything. His eyes darted back and forth anxiously at the both of them, betraying a decided lack of confidence that Combeferre had never seen in the years he’d known him. “I’m--I’m really happy for you guys,” he said quietly.

Combeferre opened his mouth to say something, but Courfeyrac spoke before he could get the words out. “It’s okay,” he said, throwing his arm around his friend’s shoulder -- it was his way of telling his friend the apology was accepted. “And hey, now we can double date with you and Grantaire,” he pointed out.

Enjolras glared at him. “I wouldn’t count on it,” he grumbled. “You got any coffee?”

“Coming right up, chief,” Courfeyrac said, with a mock-salute.

And as they went inside, Combeferre couldn’t think of anywhere he’d rather be.

**  
One month later, Enjolras and Grantaire threw a housewarming party.

Enjolras had just moved his things into Grantaire’s place -- partially because they had been spending so much time together it didn’t make much sense for them to pay for two separate places, and partially because Enjolras had gotten in a dispute over his lease that made him persona non grata with his landlord. It was Grantaire who asked Enjolras to move in with him -- it was an impulsive question, asked in a post-coital haze, but just as impulsively Enjolras agreed, and a week later, the deal was done. It didn’t take long for Enjolras to move his belongings in -- he generally was not the type who cared much about material possessions -- although it was clear that it would take time for them to adjust to living under the same roof.

It was Grantaire’s idea to mark the occasion with a party -- at first Enjolras had just wanted a small dinner with Combeferre and Courfeyrac, but quickly escalated when Grantaire included Prouvaire and Joly. Feuilly came over to help Grantaire make desserts, which led to an invite being extended to him as well, and then Courfeyrac asked to bring Bahorel, and then Grantaire realized he had to include Bossuet too -- and before they knew it, there were nine of them gathered around Grantaire and Enjolras’s apartment, drinking and eating and mingling with each other,

“I thought this was just going to be a little dinner party with our closest friends,” Enjolras muttered to Grantaire as he rummaged around in the cooler in search of a particular type of beer he knew Feuilly liked.

Grantaire chortled. “Maybe these are our closest friends,” he pointed out.

“There’s so damn many of them, though,” Enjolras hissed. “I used to be able to fit all of my friends at a corner table at the Musain, and now it’s like a small army.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Grantaire asked, “As long as they all get along,” he added, peering out of the kitchen, where Combeferre and Prouvaire were huddled in a corner, talking animatedly. “I mean, didn’t Courf cheat on Prouvaire with Combeferre? And now they’re over there blathering on about poetry or something,” Grantaire said in amazement.

“Technically, they weren’t a couple--” Enjolras felt compelled to point out, but stopped when he noticed Grantaire rolling his eyes. “But yes, I see your point,” he said as he wandered back out into the living room to offer a beer to Feuilly, who was chatting up Bahorel on the couch.

Grantaire held back for a moment, standing in the corner of the room, taking in the whole scene. Not that long ago, he had stood in that exact same spot, alone and lost. staring at his canvas, willing himself to find a subject he wanted to paint. Inspiration was flowing more freely as of late, and he was finding himself more interested not in his own inner demons but in those of others, which was leading him away from abstract expressionism and back toward portraiture -- a genre he hadn’t touched since before the storm. He’d done some sketches of Prouvaire playing his music, and a couple of drawings he’d done of regular patrons of Courfeyrac and Bahorel’s restaurant now hung over its bar.

For so long, he never knew exactly what he was looking for -- but as he looked around at his apartment, filled with friends both old and new, he realized he had been searching for a community.

And the community he was looking for was right here.

**  
One year later, Joly was sitting alongside the river, while Prouvaire stretched out across him, his legs dangling over the arm of the bench and his head in Joly’s lap, basking in the warmth of an unseasonably warm day. Soon the days would get cooler, and the days shorter, and Prouvaire would want to retreat into the cocoon of the apartment he and Joly had been sharing since the first of the year -- but for now, he was blissfully happy.

He had noticed, however, that Joly seemed uncharacteristically quiet. “What are you thinking about, my dear Jolllly?” he asked, using the pet name he’d started using not long after they’d started dating, to Joly’s bemusement and pride.

Joly stroked Prouvaire’s curls absently. “Nothing, really -- I just -- well, I’ve been thinking a lot about what to do about my parents.” His father had been in the hospital again last month, which had necessitated another extended stay up in Boston. “And I’m starting to wonder if it’s time for me to move to be closer to them.”

“I can understand that,” Prouvaire murmured. It wasn’t the first time Joly had mentioned such a thing, although every mention of his moving back to New England felt like a dagger in Prouvaire’s heart.

“The problem is -- my entire life is here. My job, our friends,” Joly mused. “You,” he added, stroking the side of Prouvaire’s face with the back of his hand.

Prouvaire looked up at him with wide eyes. “Well, I’ve been thinking too,” he began. “And I’ve been talking to a few people up in Boston about some possibilities. Teaching, artists-in-residence things, stuff like that. And they want me to come back to New York at some point, too, and that’s definitely closer to Boston than it is to New Orleans…” he trailed off, concerned that he had already said too much.

“You would do that for me?” Joly asked. “But you love this place. It’s your home.”

“But I love you more, and my home is with you,” Prouvaire said simply. “Where you go, I go, right?”

Joly’s eyes were glistening as he gazed down at Prouvaire -- he was not usually the one to be overcome with emotion, but Prouvaire’s words had clearly moved him. “You know that Massachusetts has had marriage equality for a long time now,” he mused. “And that we could get married up there.”

Prouvaire sat up and faced Joly. “Are you asking me to marry you?” he asked.

Joly smiled that same sweet smile Prouvaire had fallen in love with in that bar that night. “Maybe I am,” he teased.

“And maybe,” Prouvaire whispered, kissing him on the lips. “I’m saying yes.”


End file.
